Go Out And See The Leonid Meteor Shower Tonight!

Who doesn’t like a brilliant display of shooting stars or meteors streaking through the night sky?

Head out and see the Leonid meteor shower!

The annual 2010 Leonid meteor shower is here again. It comes every year as the Earth passes through the debris trail of a comet that passed through our solar system, and the shooting stars you see are tiny pieces of rock burning up in the air that the meteor left behind.

This display won’t be as great as past years, but the moon will be low enough in the sky that it shouldn’t interfere with the faintness of the meteors.

Every now and then one of the meteors will explode in a fireball called a bolide, which can really light up the sky.

About 15-20 meteors per hour are predicted, so just head out to a dark safe area away from light pollution and look to the eastern sky after midnight towards the constellation Leo, and you should get lucky and see some!